WLB Season Preview 2017/18 | Championship: Top Goalscorer

It’s 9/1 the field in another competitive Championship heat.

Britt Assombalonga (9/1 Bet365) racked up 14 goals in his 32 appearances for Nottingham Forest last year at a rate of 0.65 goals-per-90 minutes, a figure better than that of leading scorer Chris Martin, who played twice as many minutes as the new Middlesbrough man.

But with the £15m Assombalonga seeing out the 90 just six times after Christmas, any enthusiasm from a betting perspective has to be tempered.

One goal in 13 wasn’t a true reflection of Scott Hogan’s (16/1 SkyBet) ability at Villa Park after his January move to the Midlands. The former Brentford man was knocking on the door with 60% of his shots on-target and with question marks over Jonathan Kodjia’s summer recovery from his broken ankle, we should expect to see Hogan in better light.

Ollie Watkins (66/1 Ladbrokes) is great and just like all the social media judges, I’ve seen ALL THE VIDEOS of Neal Maupay (66/1) over the past 10 minutes – he looks a player-and-a-half to my untrained and overly-excitable eye.

He probably doesn’t get in ahead of a pretty settled Brentford front-three early doors, although Lasse Vibe is in the last 12 months of his contract and Dean Smith is all about competition for places.

I’d rather be on the speculative 66s now than the 33s later but value doesn’t put dinner on the table, as we know.

Bear with me on this one but at bigger prices and with room for improvement it was a breakthrough season for Jordan Hugill (70/1 10BET) at Preston last year.

Simon Grayson’s departure at Deepdale and Alex Neil’s arrival can only spell good signs for any Preston attacking player; they’ll look to get the ball forward quicker and, while Hugill may want the ball more direct, we might expect to still see the 25-year old build on his 12 goals last year.

In fact, while we’re at Deepdale, there’s no reason why Tom Barkhuizen (100/1 SkyBet) doesn’t become a better player under Neil either – six goals in 12 starts at North End last season for a player that looked Championship class when I first saw him at Hereford all those years ago.

Elsewhere, Neil’s old club Norwich welcome Daniel Farke to the club. Pre-season suggests it’s still one of Cameron Jerome (25/1 Ladbrokes) or Nelson Oliveria (20/1 SkyBet) as the German switches between strikers.

Oliveria probably has his nose in front after a prolific pre-season and his time on the pitch was more effective than his teammate last season – 0.63 goals-per-90 minutes as opposed to 0.43.

About Author

After a misspent youth spent sneaking into Midland’s racetracks with his Dad without paying, Gavin caught the betting bug early. While the betting landscape may have changed, it’s still all about solving puzzles and although edges have got smaller, there are still profitable angles for punters lower down the football pyramid. When not watching his beloved Coventry City, he’s watching games in Leagues 1 and 2, on the lookout for goalscoring defenders, penalty taking midfielders and in-form strikers for his Anytime Notebook.